7x10 Nothing gold can stay: Tag
by teaandcookies1000
Summary: How could he have possibly said that right into her face when all she was trying to do was the job she had been doing since before they'd even met? What right did he of all people have to make her chose! He was not going to get away with it that easily tonight. She wouldn't let him hurt her that much again.


**Hello again. I liked the episode and I didn't like it. I don't know... But I had to write this tag to get all the emotions out. Jane acted like a selfish little bastard this time (sorry Jane, but it's true) and it got me pretty let's say emotional. I mean I understand him that he has to heal and that it must be really hard for him and all but yeah... Thanks to Lulu and colorfulglitter (check out her stories too they're great). Lol anyway, as always, please let me know what you think I love every single review I get. Ok I hope this satisfies you as much as writing it satisfied me;) **

She was mad. Really mad and sad and maybe she was the most hurt she had ever been in her life. But that's what people think every time they get hurt. In the beginning it's bad. You think that there's not a chance that it could get even worse, but then it happens again and you start to think that you couldn't possibly know how bad it might get. Although you know that it hurts you think that now you must've reached the point where it couldn't get any worse. After a time you get over it, start to forget and forgive until you get struck by another betrayal or another hurtful experience leaving you bruised and scarred. And slowly the hurt turns into anger and the anger turns into sadness which turns into despair.

This was exactly what had happened to her. Teresa Lisbon had once again been sent to the desert by no one else but Patrick Jane. She should've known... She should've expected that this would happen sooner or later. It was a part of him to run from difficult situations instead of trying to work things out, just as he had suggested the other day. She thought that for once there was something going right in her life, family-wise. She'd thought that it would be easy, ok not exactly easy but she had thought that they would manage their relationship and work somehow. Now, she wasn't so sure anymore.

Lisbon pulled her legs closer to her body and started rocking herself back and forth, trying to soothe herself, a glass of scotch in her one hand. There was some soap opera running on TV, but she didn't really pay attention and turning it on had been a desperate attempt of cheering herself up, which had obviously failed. How would she ever have a normal life with the man she loved if there kept being situations like that coming their way? How was she supposed to get the happy ever after she wanted so badly?

Right now, she wasn't even sure what she would do the next day. She knew the pain of being alone and being left alone. She had been in the exact same position two times before, only that this time it hurt even more. Now she knew what it was like to love him, to take care of him and to make him smile she was fully aware of what she had to lose.

She wasn't ready to let him go once again and she certainly didn't want him out of her life. She had just gotten him after all. After pouring herself the third glass of scotch, which she used to numb the pain, she decided that she wouldn't let him leave her.

She got into the car and drove to the airstream. Of course he was still there.

The ultimatum he had given her wasn't one and the things he'd said at the cemetery were not acceptable but she had been too shocked to counter.

The cemetery.

She had tried not to think about Vega's death, because it made her even sadder than she already was, but now there it was.

The weight of her death pushing her down and she was glad that she was already close to the airstream. She knew that driving under influence of alcohol was illegal- of course, she was a cop- but there was no other way to save her love life. She felt the effect the drug had on her since she was a little dizzy already. Lisbon didn't drink on a regular basis, actually she tried to avoid it as much as possible, but in some situations she didn't see any other way to lessen the pain and to forget.

Seeing Vega that day had been like looking at her dead daughter. The team was her family, it had always been and that made it even worse.

She suddenly remembered what she was here for and it didn't take her a long time to get into the right state of mind for the conversation she would have to lead.

She lifted her head from the steering wheel and let her hands fall on it before opening the car door and walking towards the motorhome.

She took a deep breath and knocked before opening the door and entering, she was allowed to do that, she was his girlfriend after all.

Jane was sitting on his bed, his back leaning against the wall of the airstream. He looked like crap, but she had expected nothing else, because that was exactly how she felt and probably how she looked, too.

In his one hand there was a glass filled with some kind of liquor, his eyes were closed though. Suddenly the words he'd said at the cemetery came to her mind again and left her even angrier than she had already been.

"_Me dying... it..it doesn't hurt me"_

"_I'm leaving"_

What was he thinking? Who did he think he was? How could he have possibly said that right to her face when all she was trying to do was the job she had been doing since before they'd first met? What right did he of all people have to make her chose?!

He was not going to get away with it that easily tonight. She wouldn't let him hurt her that much again.

She had to remember all the times he'd left her, they flushed before her eyes within seconds. Las Vegas, the beach, the two years she'd spent in Washington and now this was his fourth attempt. But he wasn't going to get away with it tonight. Not this time.

Once again she had drifted off in her thoughts. She quickly shook her head to get back to the present time again and marched forward to stand in front of the bed, her arms crossed. She wanted to slap him, but she managed to stay somewhat calm and cleared her throat.

"Jane."

He moved his head and slowly opened his eyes.

"We need to talk. Now."

"Lisbon?"

"Of course, who else would be stupid 'nough to enter your airstream in the middle of the night, jerk."

He straightened his back and closed his eyes hard and then opened them the next moment and look at her, his head tilted to his left, which was something he always did when he was upset.

"From my perspective there's nothing to talk about. I made myself clear, didn't I?"

"And that is the problem, Jane! What were you thinking?! What _are _you thinking?!"

"I...I can't lose you...I've already explained that to you, haven't I?"

"So your solution is leaving me? For such a smart man you are really stupid at times."

"It is the only way for me to not experience it over and over again. The pain, the loss...I can't..."

"Do you even hear yourself talking? Jane that is life! Have you ever thought about it that way?!" It was harder than usual for her to find arguments, since she was still drunk, but Jane, who was also not sober, tipsy at least, didn't notice. "Everyone dies at one point. I know this sounds harsh and I know that you think that I can't possibly understand what you're feeling, but Jane I, too have experienced loss and I, too have grieved. But if you want to be happy you have to take risks, you have to let life happen! I know that you want to protect me from danger but it feels to me like you would want to lock me up in a cell for crazy people with cushions all around me. It feels like you want to imprison me and I can't live like that."

When she looked at his face again she could see that she'd made him sad again, the line between his eyebrows getting deeper with every word she said.

"Don't you have anything to say about this?" she said, her voice getting sharper while she talked.

"You're right."

"Jane!"

"Lisbon I don't know how I can give you what you want from me! I don't know how to make myself feel different. I wish I knew how to fix this." He buried his face in his hands and she let him.

"So do I... But there's something else I need to tell you. And don't you think I am getting over the top here, because I'm not. What you said was bullshit."

She was so mad at him it hurt.

"Me dying... it..it doesn't hurt me." she imitated him, speaking louder and louder. "Jane, can't you hear how selfish you are? Have you ever thought about ..." she needed to take a break to calm herself down, took a few breaths and continued with a more controlled voice: "Has it ever come to your mind that I would be as horrified as you'd be? Have you still not realized...that I love you with everything I am? That I would be a mess if anything would happen to _you_?"

He lifted his head from his hands and looked at her. His eyes were still filled with the doubt that Lisbon thought she had irrevocably erased some weeks ago by telling him she loved him.

She had to turn around, because she couldn't believe what she had just , this idiot, still had doubts. He still didn't know that she had chosen him... forever... It overwhelmed her and she had to sit down in the shotgun chair, her thoughts still not leaving her alone.

This man cost her her last strand of nerves and there was nothing she could do about it.

After all this time, all the 'I love you's', after all the times they had passionately had sex he still didn't fully get that she loved him with all her heart.

It crushed her and after the day they both had had this was all it needed to make her sob uncontrollably.

The tears streaming down her face slowly wetted her shirt and left her even more miserable than she had already been.

All she wanted was to be wrapped in his warm embrace, but she doubted that would happen.

The shirt was starting to get cold, sticking to her chest but the tears didn't stop. Suddenly images of Vega mixed into her already messed up thoughts about Jane and her and another sob ripped the silence in the airstream. Jane was still sitting on his bed, she assumed, but she was wrong. Suddenly she could feel his lips pressing to her head.

In silence he took her hand and helped her stand up. All she could do was letting herself sink into him, the only place she wanted to be and didn't want to be at the same time. After some time and after Lisbon had changed into one of Jane's shirts they went to bed, holding each other tight. That was all they could do for now.

Life was a mess.

They were a mess.

Would they work it out?

Probably.

But right now it was a disaster.


End file.
